This Vegan Fried Chicken Will Be Available at 650 Stores Nationwide

Just how many vegan chicken brands can there be? The vegan chicken market has been flooded with new brands, products, and recipes. Now, Skinny Butcher just announced that it will be rolling out a full selection of plant-based chicken products, featuring nuggets, tenders, sliders, breasts, and patties. Beyond its sweeping retail presence, Skinny Butcher is also launching its Crazy Crispy Chick’n ghost kitchen concept to bring fried chicken sandwiches directly to customers across the country.

Skinny Butcher’s retail and foodservice debut is an impressive accomplishment from an up-and-coming vegan brand. The Detroit-based company partnered with several major companies including the Golden West Food Group to make sure that its plant-based chicken would be available in hundreds of stores at launch.

“Our mission is to go to market with a line that wins on branding and on flavor profile,” Skinny Butcher CEO Dave Zilko said in a statement. “No other plant-based program possesses the brand personality of Skinny Butcher; he [the butcher] endears himself to the consumer at the point of sale and that relationship continues through consumption. Skinny Butcher does not take himself—or our Crazy Crispy line of Chick’n Nuggets, Tenders, Patties, Sliders, or Breasts—too seriously. This kind of food should be fun, while also being sustainable.”

The vegan chicken brand claims that its plant-based chicken is far crispier and juicier than typical plant-based chicken. Skinny Butcher developed the plant-based chicken using a progressive vegetable fiber strain derived from pea protein, then flavored the vegan protein with a specialized spice blend.

While the Golden West Food Group helps Skinny Butcher expand its retail presence, the plant-based company also partnered with Chicago-based Asian restaurant chain Wow Bao to rapidly enter the foodservice sector. The fast-casual chain will help Skinny Butcher launch its ghost kitchens nationwide at nearly 650 locations. The Skinny Butcher menu will include, Jumbo Chick’n Tenders, Chick’n Caesar Salad, Teriyaki Chick’n, sandwiches, Chick’n Parm, and select sliders. People can order the Crazy Crispy Chick’n menu items from Uber Eats, DoorDash, and GrubHub.

Skinny Butcher is backed by investment capital firm Valor Siren Ventures, which injected $10 million into Skinny Butcher to help with the retail and food service expansion.

“We’ve assembled an amazing collection of thought leaders from across the country,” Zilko said. “Skinny Butcher offers instantly iconic branding at retail and an industry-leading flavor format with a virtual restaurant program and the resources to scale nationally.”

Skinny Butcher is not the first plant-based brand to test a ghost kitchen business model. Late last year, Impossible Foods announced that it would be opening The Impossible Shop in partnership with the restaurant chain Dog Haus. The company operates 39 ghost kitchens in Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Wyoming, California, New York, and Maryland.

The ghost kitchens – also known as virtual kitchens – are helping make plant-based foods more accessible to customers. The innovative concept allows people to find inexpensive plant-based alternatives to their favorite classic American fast foods. Skinny Butcher's ghost kitchens will continue open as the vegan fast food market is expected to reach $40 billion by 2028.

Fast-food restaurants have finally got the memo that their customer base isn’t just coming through for a burger, fried chicken, or a beef taco. Many now have plant-based foods and are coming up with creative, delicious ways to get more greens on the menu. Here are the 6 best fast-food chains with plant-based options on the menu.

Turns out there’s a lot more to rely on than a salad if you’re eating plant-based. Burger King has the Impossible Whopper featuring a meatless patty as well as a few secretly vegan options such as the French Toast Sticks and Hashbrowns.

Known for its mini square-shaped sliders, this hamburger chain jumped on the plant-based bandwagon at some participating locations. You can find an Impossible Slider on some White Castle menus.

This was the first national Mexican fast-food chain to offer Beyond Meat at the company’s 580 restaurants across the country. Del Taco has the Beyond Avocado Taco on the menu along with the Epic Beyond Original Mex Burrito and Avocado Veggie Bowl.

Another brand synonymous with beef burgers, Carl’s Jr. offers several plant-based options for veggie and plant lover such as Beyond Famous Star Burger and Guacamole Thickburger.

This fast-food restaurant may have been one of the first you frequented while transitioning to plant-based eating. That’s because Taco Bell has eight million vegetarian combinations and sells 350 million vegetarian items a year through menu substitutions or ordering off their vegetarian menu. In fact, they were the first quick-service restaurant to offer American Vegetarian Association (AVA) certified food options.

From the time it started offering breakfast sandwiches in 2006, the coffee conglomerate became a competitor in the fast-food space. You can get your favorite hot and cold beverages made with almond, coconut or oat milk but there are also plant-based food options available such as the Baja Black Bean Veggie Wrap, bagel with vegan cream cheese and Impossible Breakfast Sandwich.